Red high heels on fire Square

From high heels to open-toed sandals?

Hamish Gobson’s diary: the view from across the Maghreb

14 March 2023

I HAVE come to Morocco for a few weeks to escape the outbreak of political neurosis in Scotland due to the demotion of Nicola Sturgeon from high heels to open-toed sandals.

Even Great Todday has been affected by the SNP leadership race, and everyone wants to know how to block political channels on their phones and other such devices. Suffering as I do from “technological cretinism”, I have no solution to offer, other than to go abroad for a while – or permanently, as my host here did several years ago.

It is true that all devices work in al-Maghrib-al-Aqsá, but at least you do not have to endure media discussion of the contest between Our Lady of Red Clydeside, a Jehovah’s Witnessette, or Jehovah Himself. I plan to let the celestial trio abuse each other freely until the party faithful have decided who they think Scotland wants as heir to the high-heeled throne.

My host, who is a philosopher of sorts, suggests the contestants are like unquiet spirits flitting through the darkness that finally enveloped noble Caledonia after the last rays of the Scottish Enlightenment were extinguished by the University of Edinburgh when it turned its back on the memory of David Hume and Stalinised its building-name policy. How long before the successful “continuity candidate” renames the renamed building Sturgeon Tower? At this juncture, he, she, it or they will doubtless argue, we need something positive to help restore Scotland’s sense of its own dignity, history and freedom.

I am staying in the medina of Tangier, where we are attended to by a charming young man called Humza who also attends upon my host. While we are out playing bridge or golf, or partying with the international community, Humza prepares hallal chicken (much tastier when killed this way) and mint tea (though the Presbyterian in me prefers it with not quite so much sugar). When we return, he joins us to chat over the dinner he has just served. This is a particular pleasure since we do not have to fear the Hate Crime Act whose effect is limited to noble Caledonia.

Humza is therefore free to say that he does not condone driving without insurance by ministers of the government, or the theft of party or public funds by greedy political activists. That is the benefit of monarchical government, he argues. A strong king imposes stability on his servant community. Individuals may be as corrupt as fallen mankind anywhere, but the power of the Court makes peculation pointless in the long run as it always leads to the penal portcullis for those who put themselves forward too noisily as candidates for high office.

I nod thoughtfully and reflect on the inability of our own King’s servants – the police and courts (of law) – to restrain the greed of the light-fingered carpet-baggers who aspire to positions of power at Holyrood or in the central committee of the Scottish government. It is to get control of the public’s money flow that the nonentities mentioned above are prepared to compete so ostentatiously in public, to the shame and embarrassment of all honest and patriotic Scots.

Perhaps we ought to encourage political hopefuls to emigrate to cities like this one where, in the Medina, the houses are built so close together that long-fingered graspers can easily reach out across the alleyways and lift valuables from the open windows of their neighbours. The temptation for most would be irresistible. At that point a riot would break out, after which our friends in the current political maelstrom would be informally reclassified as “no longer fit for active service”.

Alternatively, the police would intervene. The consequence of that would be to award the owners of the guilty fingers free think-pods, complete with locks and bars, in a less desirable part of the city, far from the golf courses and whist tables. There they could spend many fruitful years contemplating glory of the Prophet, or the majesty of King Mohammed VI who, incidentally, acceded to the throne of this happy realm at exactly the time that Donald Dewar I’s new parliament met for the first time in the Edinburgh Medina.

The benefit of this would be that, when the muezzin calls from the tower of the mosque, our political hopefuls could learn to repeat “Allah Akhbar”, which has a much more resonant sound than the new slogan which seems to be catching on in Scotland today: “Jehovah Akhbar”.

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Hamish Gobson lives on the Hebridean isle of Great Todday (Todaidh Mór) and features in Nicola Sturgeon: the Years of Ascent (1970-2007) – A Citizen’s Biography of a Driven Woman in a Drifting Parliament (Ian Mitchell, 2022) – available on Amazon.co.uk and also reviewed here by Tom Gallagher.

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AI generated photo by EwaStudio from Adobe Stock

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